12 Days of Anime, Day 10: Rrrules vs. Anarchy

Sometimes while watching anime, there are moments where I get bowled over by what I happen to be viewing at the time, and to me that’s always a good sign. And then there are moments where I feel like I just get steamrolled over, and it takes a while to recover from that, which is where lasting moments can kick in and stay. One such moment occurs in episode 6 of Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt, where our heroine angel sisters do battle with a pair of demon sisters bent on wreaking havoc on the home setting of Daten City with artificial Ghosts (what Panty and Stocking must defeat in order to get back into Heaven) using a “Ghost Stone”. This probably sounds a little better in context than without. But the results are breathtaking regardless.

The resulting chaos, including weapon transformations/combinations, gunkata, toilet humor (figuratively and literally), catfighting and car battling, is GAINAX at it’s frenetic, action-packed best. The animation during the entire scene (especially during the gun fight and the car collision) is some of the best that I’ve seen this year, and the background music helps keep the focus on the scene well. And I have to wonder what Hiroyuki Imaishi and Masahiko Otsuka are smoking to bring great stuff like this out.

From left to right: Garterbelt, Panty, Stocking, Chuck. Hard not to take notice.

Oh, there are other moments that are cool as well. I wouldn’t even say that this is my favorite moment in the show (episode 5 part two and D City Rock beat it easily, and even episode 11 part B did that as well for me). But by far it was the most “OMG this is cool OMG!!!” moment for me in the series, and that needs some props. 😛